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Nokia admits to faking Lumia 920 ad

Nokia admits that a video designed to highlight the Lumia 920's image stabilization technology was not recorded using the handset. Evidence has been uncovered that also casts doubt on the validity of the still photos the company used to promote the camera.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor

Following yesterday's unveiling of its flagship Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 powered smartphone, the company has admitted that a video used in an ad to promote the PureView optical image stabilization was faked.

"In an effort to demonstrate the benefits of optical image stabilization (which eliminates blurry images and improves pictures shot in low light conditions), we produced a video that simulates what we will be able to deliver with OIS," writes Heidi Lemmetyinen, editor-in-chief of Nokia's official blog.

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"Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but we should have posted a disclaimer stating this was a representation of OIS only. This was not shot with a Lumia 920. At least, not yet. We apologize for the confusion we created".

Here is the ad in question.

The video was revealed as a fake by something as simple as a reflection. The reflection, caught in the window of a van showed a cameraman clearly not using a Lumia 920.

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Claims have now surfaced that Nokia also faked still photos too. Irish designer Youssef Sarhan believes that the diffraction sparkles present in the stills could not have been captured using the Lumia 920 camera, and would have required a camera with a much smaller aperture.

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A Hacker News user by the alias exDM69 has shared a photograph which appears to show Nokia's photoshoot in Helsinki city center. In the photo, the lens of a DSLR camera is visible on the left.

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Seeing, it seems, it not necessarily believing.

Image source: Nokia/YouTube, Nokia, Hacker News.

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